The conventional procedure for packaging cans or the like for transportation from one location to another involves the use of cardboard boxes in which a specific number (i.e., a group) of cans are held. Such form of packaging has a number of disadvantages. For example, in the aggregate it requires vast amounts of raw materials, i.e., pulp to form the cardboard. There is the cost of manufacturing the cardboard and converting it into boxes. The boxes, even in folded form, require substantial shipment and storage space before the boxes are employed to package the cans. At the location at which the members of the group are to be separated, the box must be opened. And, last but not least, the cardboard must be disposed of after the box has served its purpose in connection with the transporting of the cans to the location at which the group is separated.
While some limited amount of packaging of cans is performed by putting a plastic band or cap about one end of each member of the group, as in a six-pack of beer cans, this is not entirely suitable for universal application.
The principal object of the present invention is to provide a way of holding a group of objects, such as cylindrical cans, together as a group for transportation from one location to another, which is comparatively simple and inexpensive and will securely hold the objects together so that the group can be handled as a unit without the possibility of the members of the group becoming displaced from each other. The invention has the important advantage that the package does not require substantial additional amounts of raw material as in the case of a cardboard carton, nor is there a substantial amount of packaging material to be disposed of once the group of objects is to be broken up, i.e., the cans separated. This is accomplished by interdigitating protrusions and depressions on the individual objects so as to lock them together against axial displacement and banding the group so as to hold them in that interdigitated condition.
Further objects and advantages will become apparent from the following description.